Parallel Lines
by psychopath convention
Summary: "Nothing but war can make you trust a man with your life but not want to go get a beer with him." Steve Randle is just another man changed by a war no one wanted.


parallel lines -_ lines that go in the same path but never meet._

**Steve is just another man changed by a war no one wanted.**

Just another 'Nam fic, y'all. Give it a chance? A review would be super cool too. ;)

I didn't learn much in Geometry class. I was too busy staring at Evie Carter an aisle over and three seats up. That and goofing off with my buddy Two-Bit, who was taking the class going on the second time. Soda'd already dropped out.

I do remember one thing that stuck out to me though. The definition of parallel lines. They're lines that go in the same path but they never meet. I remember thinking that was sad.

I remember thinking of that when the guy next to me got his brains blown up and I finally got sent home from that fucked up war.

I spent my time in the hospital trying to learn how to dress myself with one hand and trying to figure out why I'd thought of that, of all things. Not Evie's face. Not my buddies. Not even my dead ma. No, something that old bitch Mrs. Buchanan taught me. When I got back home I was still have trouble doing basic things like feed myself and changing clothes. The hospital was too overcrowded for them to pay much attention to me after they were sure I was gonna live.

What is living anyway? It ain't this.

I go home. I get some plaque and the news that my best friend is dead. I throw the plaque in the garbage and go get wasted. My best friend's kid brother digs my plaque out of the garbage. Puts it in his room. I always hated that kid.

I don't go back to my dad's house. Going home to get my clothes and a faded picture of Evie off of my dresser isn't worth the fight I'll get in. Dad doesn't give a shit either way about the war. And he's not above pounding a one-armed vet. A crippled vet who happens to be his son.

I move in with Darry and the kid, and I sleep in the recliner every night.

I want to see Evie more than anything. She calls the Curtis's house twice a day for three weeks before she gives up on me.

The dreams are awful. Sometimes I am the man next to me. The man whose brains were leaking out of his head on the stretcher. The man who doesn't even have the strength to clutch a hand over his stomach where his intestines are leaking out. I don't remember him getting shot twice. Guess I was too busy putting pressure on what was left of my right hand. I used to love the night time, but now they're haunted.

Sometimes Evie's in the dreams, wearing a wedding dress. I barely have time to register the thought that she shouldn't be on a battlefield in 'Nam until something blows up and she's gone but her body's still there. That damn dress is dirty and bloody. I used to joke her that she shouldn't wear white anyway and she'd smack me. She'd laugh, though.

They had to take my hand. It got infected. Most of my arm, too. She's not gonna want to marry a man with a stump.

One night after I got home, I was in the Curtis living room dozing in Darry's recliner when Ponyboy shook my shoulder to try and wake me. I beat the shit out of the kid before I even realized that I wasn't in that damn war anymore. Funny enough, that's where I started to respect him. When I finally stopped punching and saw the understanding in his eyes, realized that he hadn't fought back, I knew that the Vietnam War didn't just change the men who fought in it. A year ago he would've flipped his shit and gone crying to his big brother (just one now), but I guess losing just about all you love will change a guy, even a kid like Ponyboy.

Now I have a new dream. I kill a man. A man with big green understanding eyes that I've blackened. A man with a handsome, scarred face that looks exactly like my best friend's.

A man who's just a boy. Hell, we were all just boys.

There's so many men who used to be boys. Men I'll never see again. The ones that didn't deserve to die. The ones that didn't die, but we both understand that seeing each other in such a normal setting where no one is trying to kill us would be too much to handle. Nothing but war can make you trust a man with your life but not want to go get a beer with him.

I look over my shoulder every where I go. I'm hostile to everyone. Strangers give each other uneasy looks. I know what they think. "_That's Steve Randle_," they whisper to each other. "_He could lift a hubcap faster than anybody I knew before he got drafted._" "_Damn shame,_" the other guy would say.

You're right, buddy. It is a shame. It's a shame that I've been back in town for seven months but every morning is a fresh battle, and not the kind I'm used to. This battle doesn't have guns. Just shame and guilt and hate.

Every morning it's like I just stepped off of that plane again. I still haven't seen Evie or my old man. No one was there to meet me but ole' Two-Bit at the airport, either. Darry and to work and Pony had school.

I had potential to not turn out like my father, and I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been in that damn war.

Parallel lines. Me and happiness.


End file.
